I would like to do same, but am feeding fondant on top bars below the crown board so have to crack it open. Prefer to do this, so thT the fondant is over the brood to prevent isolation. Can do this in less than 30 seconds.
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Just mixing my OA, sugar and water together for this mornings trickle treatment. 100gms Sugar, 100ml water and 7.5gms of OA making 167ml. Enough for 33 seams of bees. Question-does all the sugar need to be completely dissolved and is the OA effected by the hot water?
A few weeks ago a hive was donated to the Association Apiary. Rapidly it was noted to contain a colony of bees which were aggressive (defensive as a description didn't even come close).
Offensive behaviour included attacking anyone outside the apiary fence and following all the way to the car park. Sometimes it was necessary to drive some distance away before stopping and removal of the beesuit.
Over three weekends we hunted for the queen without success. Going through the hive two or three times with more than one set of eyes watching didn't work, neither did pairing frames. Today another search was fruitless so two of us resorted to seiving the bees through a queen excluder.
Working methodically through the frames she was nowhere...
Chickens mainly for eggs, hatch chicks in incubator for fun as well as letting broody hens hatch too. Have 11 ewes and breed lambs for market. Too painful for family to eat own. Christmas trees the most profitable but have to wait 5 Year’s for return. Moles the most challenging!
Same with my purchases from Simon, similar great service from Abelo
DIY one if you can't find a supplier, I got some of those little QE just cut the end off a normal Queen marking tube and cut QE to fit, hot glue or tape new cut out of QE back on. I think I'm going to try one.
The 14x12 feels like it is glued to the stand. The national has some weight to it too, although a bit less. Feels quite solid and on last inspection they were starting to cap stores and had drawn all frames. The nuc is a maisemore poly and feels a lot lighter in comparison, but of course it's half the size and not wooden. I'd guess it is around 10kg and certainly not getting lighter.
Thanks for all your replies.
I'm reasonably happy that it isn't robbing. To be honest, the nuc has struggled all summer after arriving in a poor state (swarm had made an open nest in a bush, which fell out). So if they're not strong enough by now to defend a small entrance, they're probably in trouble in general.
I'll keep an eye on them all but will...
Due to development of adverse reaction to bee stings have now to sell up.
The following equipment is available
3 frame extractor
5 gallon storage bucket
Components for making 20 supers frames and 10 brood frames
Smoker
Hive tool
Sugar feeders
etc
Price negotiable
Telephone 01952244792
Mike Tyson
Hi all,
I am a new beekeeper and new to the forum.
I am having a problem with my new hive. 4 weeks ago my hive swarmed, leaving me with half the bees and some capped queen cells. Since then the queens have emerged and I waited 21 days from swarming to see if the new queen had mated and was laying. She was not laying so last Sunday i added a frame of brood to them from my girlfriends hive. I checked them yesterday (Tuesday) and they had started to make emergency queen cells. I thought to myself ok so there is no queen so the busy bees are making a new one, all is not lost. But then I spotted new eggs randomly spotted around the frames either side of my added brood frame. The eggs were mainly singles but a few had two eggs in. I am now...
I noticed on our association website www.barkstonashbees.com that the local community shop was looking for a supply of honey. Accordingly I made contact and agreed to deliver 15 1lb jars while I was going to the association apiary.
At the apiary attendance was a bit low perhaps influenced by holidays.
It's not been a very good year for the colonies there. Two of the hives were failing with no worker brood cells but lots of random pattern capped drone comb. No queens could be found. The apiary manager took the boxes away and shook them out into the woods. Empty boxes were placed on the original sites to collect returning bees and he undertook to return later to carry out a newspaper unite of those bees with two other association...
Dear reader(s)
Well July is upon us and the clover is already browning off. Another heatwave is due middle of the month and after a few days rain we hope in North Wiltshire the plants are rejuvenated.
Along the riverbank I noticed the Willow herb already in bloom. I wonder what will still be flowering in August ?! IVY ?? xmas carols
Anyway, to the topic of the day. Wasps. Jaspers. Yellow Jackets. They are upon us people and we need to take action.
Today I spent half the day closing up entrances to nucs and full colonies in 4 apiaries. Got another 4 to do tomorrow....I ran out of sponges.
I buy 50p car wash sponges from B&Q. Cut them down the middle almost to the end and open out. Stuff them into the entrances - a sponge will fill...
Dear reader,
Well the year is on the wane now the summer solstice has passed us by. Another Glastonbury packed up and litter picked and Wimbledon about to start.
June ends on a wetter note than it began - rain on and off for the past 3 days and temperatures as much as 20 degrees lower than a couple of weeks ago where they hit almost 35.
The Maisemore sale was good - plenty of choice and very very busy. It seemed a lot of bulk purchases of frames were going on - one purchaser I recognised as a bee equipment seller from Hampshire - but I rather suspect the 40 roofs and frames were for their own stocks and not for sale.
One buyer departed with most of a pallet load of DN4 frames in a trailer....I'm sure they were paid for but it seemed...
I bought a National polyhive from Abelo at their open day recently. I had noticed one of my 14 x 12 plywood hives was expanding rapidly but had a lot of dark wax and I had planned to move the colony into the polyhive by a Bailey change but when I opened up on Saturday to start the procedure I discovered several charged queen cells with grubs in advanced stages. Two of the cells were in the process of being capped but the queen was still present.
I changed plans and switched to a shook swarm. I inserted a queen excluder under the new brood box prior to shaking the bees into the new hive with clean foundation as a belt and braces precaution to ensure no swarm would leave the box if they had made their minds up before I looked in.
I gave...
Collected the first swarm of 2017 from a Blackthorn hedge this afternoon. The major part of the swarm was clustered on a branch but a part of the cluster had fallen off and was on the ground below.
I placed a brood box and floor adjacent to the group on the ground, cut off the branch and shook the bees into the box. Gently inserted frames of foundation and fitted a crownboard. The bees on the ground marched in to the entrance and joined their friends. I left the box in place until evening when i found all the bees had gone inside and i could relocate the hive.
Left them three days to draw comb and use the stores they carried in.
Dear Reader
Well I must be chastised - over a month since I last posted...but my excuse is the bees and for those who have more than 10 hives (and I know some of you have many many more) then you know how time seems to just slip through your hands when the bees start their summer build up.
Since I last wrote, I've extracted well over 25 supers of (mostly) OSR - melting about 10 supers worth in the Api Melter as it had solidified. A good yield from the hives I expected to do well as they were full colonies heading into the winter of 2016.
Not that any were right next to OSR - most had to travel a fair bit but I didn't have the time to move them to alongside the crops (where I suspect the yields would have been even larger).
In...
I have collected 3 swarms and ran out of boxes after the first so I had to buy a couple of new polynucs from Abelo. One swarm trooped into a cardboard box but changed its mind, came out and flew away over the rooftops.
The first swarm of the year which I collected in April has settled in, it's now in a national hive, the queen is laying like an express train and they are filling a super (soon to be two).
The shook swarm i carried out into the new full size Abelo polyhive is taking its time to get going. Seems healthy, just slow. I'm hoping to see a surge in activity soon.
The first collected May swarm is in a Paynes polynuc and actively expanding. The second was the cardboard box attempt. The third swarm collected appears to have...
Dear reader
Well I do apologise - there is more than one of you unless my single reader read the last blog 18 times ! Glad to have another on board !
Just to reassure you - if you are a newbeek (less than 20 years experience) that the bee frenzy and excitement one feels every new season doesn't go away even for us mid-beeks (28 years) nor for old-beeks of 40 years (one up the road who's got the spring buzz as well)
Anyway, Much to do in May was my last blog entry - and it continues apace.
I dragged Hachi along to the GBKA auction at the weekend - his first and not his last either. Some interesting lots with silly prices for some kit, crazy prices for other and unbelievable for full colonies of bees ready to split at £80 each.
I...
I had a message from the clerk to say there was a swarm of bees on her lawn. Judging by the colour of the bees in the accompanying photo they weren't from my apiary plus I am running out of spare equipment. I suggested she contact the other beekeeper in the village but he wasn't immediately available. So curiosity impelled me to go round for a look.
We found a cardboard box, cut an entrance hole then I scooped a few handfuls of bees into the box, closed the lid then set it down next to the swarm with the entrance facing the bees. Bees gathered around the entrance fanning determinedly. The march into the box began.
Most of the bees had gone into the box when the other beekeeper turned up. He decided to come back later when the...
